Why I Keep My Personal and Professional Social Networking Accounts Separate

The line between personal and professional lives has been blurred greatly thanks to social media. Many of my friends use the same Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate with both their close friends and their clients. They believe that mixing everything together and just being who they are is more authentic, thus helping to build deeper relationships with clients and colleagues.

But while that might work for some people, I prefer to keep my personal and professional social networking accounts separate. It’s not that I’m hiding who I am or being a phony with my clients and colleagues, but I just think there’s a danger that comes with being too authentic.

The way I have it setup right now, I use Twitter and LinkedIn for all professional social media communications and Facebook for my personal social networking.

Why do I keep them apart?

I don’t like censoring myself—My Facebook page is where I can relax and say whatever I want. If I want to post a picture of myself being a drunk idiot, I can do it without having to worry about looking unprofessional and damaging my brand. If I want to post my opinion about a sensitive subject (e.g. religion, politics, etc.), I can do it without risking my business.

I don’t want to annoy my friends by posting work-related content—Let’s be honest. My friends and family don’t really care all that much about my professional life. They don’t want to see status updates with marketing and copywriting tips or links to business-related articles that I find interesting. They just don’t care about that, and if I clog their feed with that type of stuff, they’ll get annoyed with me. It’s two different audiences, so they require two different types of content.

It’s just healthy to have a distinction in your life—Working from home, it can be very difficult to create a line between my personal and work lives. But I learned long ago that it’s something you have to do. It’s not healthy to let your work consume your life. You need to do your best to keep the two separated from each other so you can maintain your sanity.

Do you have separate social networking accounts for personal and professional purposes?

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